Join me on my Classroom Hatch-A-Long, support and advice appreciated!

[abenardini]

Hi everyone!
I am SO EXCITED to be preparing for my first incubator hatch, and will be involving my students! I am setting 18 EE/OE eggs on April 19 when we return to school after spring break. I know it is early, but I have LOTS of questions and want to make sure I am prepared to make this as successful as I can for the kids!

Here is the background info:
I have a NR360 incubator, never been used.
I am planning to make a 4way divider for lockdown, mainly so I can separate each color egg. The kids will guess if they think the chicks from each color shell will hatch out the same colors as each other.
Right now, I am tracking the temperature and humidity in my classroom. Today was 20% humidity and 68-70 degrees (outside temps around 40).
At some point, I know I need to calibrate the temp and humidity on the incubator.

Here are a few of my initial questions:
Should I calibrate in my classroom before break? (It will be over a week before I set the eggs).
Should I calibrate at home a day or two before I set eggs?
Should I do both?
How long should I let the incubator run and how soon to hatch?
Should I let it run both at school and at home to test it out?
What else can I be doing to prepare?

I am hoping to have the students help me candle, check temp and humidity, and record development in their egg logs. We will also keep the chicks for 2 weeks after before sending to their forever homes, and the kids will be responsible for feed and water (I will handle poop cleanup!)

Thoughts? Advice? Concerns? I hope some of you will stay with me through my neurotic questioning and preparation to make it to egg setting and hatching!

Thanks so much for the read! I hope you enjoy this experience with me and my students!

Calibration in the environment the eggs will be incubating in is the best idea. I always buy several of the very inexpensive temperature and hygrometer monitors from Amazon and place them in different areas in the incubator to measure heat/humidity and make adjustments if truly needed. I've never used a Harris Farms incubator but they look pretty great, especially for the 360 degree visibility (I've always used Styrofoam and have a Hovabator Genesis model I have eggs in now). I always put an X with a date they were collected (yours might be all the same date I am guessing) in a soft pencil on my eggs to make sure they're being turned (but yours probably will be a lot easier to tell).

I never had the chance to get a teacher that would hatch chicks but thinking through the idea, you may want to set some ground rules up on opening the incubator, hand washing before handling eggs, minimizing time outside the incubator for the eggs when candling, and such. I also have a cool hatch calculator I put together for my own use that I'm happy to share. When you enter the date you put the eggs into the incubator, the hatch date and current stage is auto tracked, along with recommendations.

Here's a link to the tracker - hope you have fun with the kiddos!

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1w2nvDYp7mFE0ppCmzbK53b8QdoTdJ9tO/edit#gid=1138858802

 

[junior67]

If you want to get the actual loss at any point, divide the current weight by original weight, then subtract that from 1. For example:
1-(78g/84g) =
1- 0.93=
0.07 x 100%=
7%

Thank you!!! I got up to most of that then drew a blank after I got the .93. Haahaa makes sense it would then be 7%lost

 

[junior67]

So nothing else hands-on until day 10 (Fri) correct? Another candle, do we draw air cells again or wait until day 14? Any other suggestions or things I should be doing or watching for?

Thank you everybody for the support and encouragement! This has been the most exciting project of my career so far, & I have done some cool stuff!

are you going to take some pictures today? will be interesting to see how mine look compared to yours. can't believe we are almost half way there!

 

[DavidReaves]

I've been keeping hands off as much as possible, but I candled at day 10. I'm going to candle and draw air cells at day 14 and then again at day 18. When I do that, after I'm done, I will take the turner out during the lockdown.

As a side note, because of high relative humidity outside the incubator, the only way I can get humidity below 50% is to set the dome ever so slightly off completely closed. I have it cracked by setting it just off the closing pin on the back side of the dome. The tiny bit of extra ventilation that gives is enough for me to get humidity down to the high 40s.

 

[Iluveggers]

We candled again today. I tossed out the 4 clears, and after school cracked them to see what was inside. They al looked infertile, so I am happy I was accurate in recognizing them! I took pics of each egg candled (even the clears), and what they looked like cracked. Will candle again on the 14th and draw new air cells!

The humidity in my area is super low, we have wildfire warnings. I closed the vent so it is only about 1/2 open, and could barely keep it at 40%. I filled A all the way before I left, and closed the vent to 1/4 open. Humidity only went up to about 45%. Kept the shoestring wick in. I really hope it is at least 30 when I get back on Monday.

We will candle again on Day 14, and take new weights.

Day 18 falls on a weekend, and the principal said she would let me in to remove the turner and raise humidity for lockdown next weekend. Fingers crossed there’s no humidity damage this weekend.

On Day 18, so I candle, & if so, what am I looking for? It will only be me so I can go quickly.

Pics to come tonight!

 

[Cntry1958]

We candled again today. I tossed out the 4 clears, and after school cracked them to see what was inside. They al looked infertile, so I am happy I was accurate in recognizing them! I took pics of each egg candled (even the clears), and what they looked like cracked. Will candle again on the 14th and draw new air cells!

The humidity in my area is super low, we have wildfire warnings. I closed the vent so it is only about 1/2 open, and could barely keep it at 40%. I filled A all the way before I left, and closed the vent to 1/4 open. Humidity only went up to about 45%. Kept the shoestring wick in. I really hope it is at least 30 when I get back on Monday.

We will candle again on Day 14, and take new weights.

Day 18 falls on a weekend, and the principal said she would let me in to remove the turner and raise humidity for lockdown next weekend. Fingers crossed there’s no humidity damage this weekend.

On Day 18, so I candle, & if so, what am I looking for? It will only be me so I can go quickly.

Pics to come tonight!

Your Egg will look almost completely dark inside. It fills about 95% of the egg. You may see the chicks move or even rock the shell as it moves itself into position to pip. It will begin the internal pip around day 19 or 20 and will hatch shortly after it pips the shell and absorbs the yolk. Once its pips and puts the external hole in the shell it can take up to 24 hours to hatch. The chick will rest in between the pip and before it zips the shell and actually hatches. So dont get upset if it takes a day or so before it hatches.

 

[Iluveggers]

Here’s the pics from today!

 

[Iluveggers]

A, B, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P & Q all had veins.

I pulled D a few days ago because I saw a bloodline. C, E, F & R were clear so I assumed they were infertile. C & E were the same color and size blue eggs, F & R were the Olive eggs. I am hypothesizing that either the rooster doesn’t care too much for the hens they came from, or the hens they came from don’t care too much for that rooster.

Here’s what I got when I cracked the 4 clears:

 

[room onthebroom]

You are so great to do this with them @Iluveggers. I remember doing this as a kid in school & it was a very memorable, exhilarating experience.

I also did this as a homeschool project with my own kids when they were little. So many great memories!

 

[junior67]

Here’s the pics from today!
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your eggs look so different than mine. You can see the veins so clearly in yours...... glad they are doing so great!